Ryzom

Levels are the biggest pain in every game.


Can I join in You team?
Sure what level are You?
- Sorry, but You are too low and could not hit anyting.
- Sorry, but You are too high and would suck the exp.

Team got full wipe (dead) and time just run out.
- &#!%, I have to go to work my dp now, see You later. (one skill so high that cause high dp, can't be worked out on this team)

Here is new stuff for You.
- Sorry, but I can't use this, it's too high for me.
- Sorry, but this stuff is useless for me, sell them.

I need new stuff.
What level/quality stuff You need?
- Sorry, I can't make those stuff yet.
- Sorry, but ask someone with lower crafting skills, I'm busy.


What I'm saying, levels cause a lot of social problems. Some games have tryed to solve this problem with sidekick and examplar systems. Ability get lower level player up and higher level player down, so we could all play in same teams. Of cause the question is why haven't anyone come idea about game system what doesn't have levels?

sofiaoak wrote:Of cause the question is why haven't anyone come idea about game system what doesn't have levels?

They have. If Jyudas cared about this thread I'm sure he'd name one or two

sprite wrote:They have. If Jyudas cared about this thread I'm sure he'd name one or two

Tabletop systems?

I could name you scores if I had the time and energy to do so

Computer game wise?

It could be done and, frankly, I think it would make for a better MMORPG experience in a lot of games. Baby steps though.

My ideal, I think, would be to enter a game with a competent and capable character already, make it about the story, about the deeds, accomplishments, wealth and so on, with very minimal or very slow (and non grind dependendent) advancement.

This is way off-topic though, but if anyone wants to discuss other forms of RPGs and their relevence (or lack thereof) to MMORPGs we could always start a thread elsewhere

sofiaoak wrote:Of cause the question is why haven't anyone come idea about game system what doesn't have levels?

i know one single crpg that does the next best available thing, it's called vagrant story and was made for the psx. the character in that game basically consists of 5 stats, hp, mp, strength, intelligence, agility. these get increased by small boni throughout the whole game, usually by finding certain potions or beating bosses. the max gain you can get with these on the first play-through is about double of what you start with, if not less. these stats are useful and give a good foundation, but in the end they don't change your actual power by much.
the way they chose to enact character improvement in this game is via the equipment. first off, every piece of equipment also has str/int/agi-modifiers, but they don't have much of an impact, same as the stats on the char. now the important part: each single piece of equipment has 6 race stats, 6 elemental stats and 3 damage types. depending on wether it's a weapon or armor these stats increase your damage when using a weapon of the opposite element, matching race stat and type which the enemy's defense is lowest against or by using armor that is of the same type as the enemy's attack.
you can increase these stats simply by using them against an enemy that has according attributes. for example to make my dagger more effective against dark undead zombies, i'd fight against easier monsters of this type and increase the undead factor, the light factor and the piercing factor of my knife that way. in the contrary though this would mean that the knife loses effectiveness against light creatures and against phantoms, dragons or evil creatures. this results in a constant juggling of equipment and makes it almost impossible to create "perfect" equipment, since the simple use of equipment does always degrade it in some ways.
the only way to improve items out of battle is to forge them together. it is possible to literally combine every item and many combinations actually produce useful results. the forging system is more complex than anything i have ever seen (and even outstrips ryzom in that regard), so i won't go into detail there.
added to that is a combat system that allows the player to target any part of the enemy to take advantage of their equipment or to inflict status effects. another part of the combat system is the use of risk and combos. risk is a kind of "anti-concentration" meter. the higher it is, the less concentrated you are, which means that you take more damage, are easier to hit and conversely deal less damage and hit less often. risk reduces slowly while having your weapon at the ready and fast while "relaxing". it is increased slowly by attacking, performing defense maneuvers and fast by chaining combos. combos allow the player to chain attacks with different effects together, the advantage is that the enemy cannot act while you're performing it. to make the use of these difficult however there are several elements in place. first off the already mentioned risk, it rises slowly while dealing the first 8 hits and then is filled completely in a few more hits. every combo attack is only a modifier of the first hit, meaning if you didn't do any damage in the first hit, any combo hits afterwards are likely to not do any damage as well. you cannot repeat the same combo attack twice after another. you have to hit the button for the combo attack at the same exact time the effect of the current attack is inflicted. once a combo is started you can only choose between three previously chosen attacks.

all of this results in a game that uses levels only in traces and only as boni or modifiers and almost completely relies on the intelligence and skills of the player.

I HATE THE PACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't play ryzom for one day XD

ryzom is FINE!!!! You dont NEED to pach it!!! (also stop with the sever reboots)

hinokee wrote:I HATE THE PACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't play ryzom for one day XD

ryzom is FINE!!!! You dont NEED to pach it!!! (also stop with the sever reboots)

If you ever moan about lack of "new content" - so help you

Add to list: High-handed foolish changes, like to MA.

Though a frequent contributor to forums during FBT, I have managed to stay off these message boards till now and just couldn't hold out anymore after reading this thread. So here's my top 20:

1. Database problems. Despite the best bunch of GM's in the business, developer customer support is the worst in the business....well Blizzard / Valve is probably still tied for worst but it's close. After 5 months of trying to get my FBT account converted to a retail account, I finally gave up and created a new account.

2. Developer response. Continuing on topic above, GM support has been great, developer responses have been terrible. Samples:

a) After reporting a problem after a server crash that I had lost a level and a packer full of crafted items upon returning to game, I was told weeks later that a check of the logs showed that I hadn't done ANY crafting in the hours before the crash. Fact is I had done nothing else but dig and craft for well over a month so I can't imagine whose logs they were looking at. I doubt they bothered to look at any. I wasn't expecting the items or the XP to be returned just wanted them to know about the problem but I didn't appreciate being called a liar.

b) I had sent in screen shots of a problem with a lost skill. A skill which clearly showed on my hands bar and in my action progression was still being offered by the vendor, rather than the next skill level up. So with a GM standing next to me, and under his direction, I bought skill level 2 a second time and was told the skill points would be restored. I was then finally able to buy skill level 3, 4 etc. After continual prodding, 3 months later I was told I didn't lose anything. On the very day before I got my answer it happened again on same skill item but higher level. Walked in to trainers with 50 skill points, walked out with no more points and 40 points worth of purchases. When reported the 2nd instance I was told to see the mail sent to address the problem from 3 months before.

c) Guildies lost freshly purchased mount in crash. GM said it would be sent up to developers, no response since.

3. The Simple Things. Reverse gender dialogs and maps missing portals, etc. C'mon ya had 18 months to fix this already.

4. Dappers. Too little of em when ya start out, then meaningless as you reach Level 100 or so cause you dig / quarter more than you could possible spend.

5. The marginalization of the combat character. Range has always the wimp of the skill trees and the melee character is no longer a required team element. They really had a good balance I thought by the end of FBT and why the apple cart was upset again I can't figure.

6. Tracking. If I track a CHOICE ONLY specific material source and then prospect that spot 30 times using the same mat spec and CHOICE ONLY with a variation of ranges and other stanzas I oughta find something. I should not track oil and sap in Dyron and wind up dead smack in the middle of the lake when it reads 1 meter.

7. Crafting. If I have to make 10 vests to earn a level in crafting vests, it seems odd that I gotta make 18 sleeves to earn a level in sleeves. Right now we have every "jools" crafter leveling diadems only and then overcrafting earings by 40, 50 or more levels. On the other hand , if it was a set number of items per level, we 'd have everyone leveling earings instead of diadems to save on mats burned. WIth the two extremes, some middle ground would be more amenable so that low mat crafts weren't such a grind.

8. No in game voice communication a la Battlefield2.

9. No ability to track guildies on map or an indicator of guildies on line w/o putting everyone of thme in your friends list.

10. Weather / Season indicators. We have to use weather & season indcators to harvest excellent / supreme mats. The GM's tell us not to use the map as a season / weather indicator cause its often wrong as far as harvesting goes. So as a person who inhabits Fyros, I am a bit short on figuring out what "indicators" I am suppossed to use for season and weather. I have one spot where I harvest excellent kachine wood when map says Summer / Rain. However sometimes when map says that, I get wrong season messages. Sometimes I get wrong weather messages. Well if it's not raining, why does map say it is ? If it's not summer why does mat say it is ? If harvest weather is not map weather then why not take it off the map ? It serves no purpose. In Fyros, the rain is invisible so you can't use that as an indicator. You hear rain when it's thundery but you can't see it and you can't dig harvest mats that are available when raining cause even tho you hear rain, as far as harvesting is concerened, it's not raining. When it is raining, according to the map and according to the harvesting rules, you can't hear it or see it. In Tryker, I have harvested some mats in every type of weather i have seen on map and never gotten anything but wrong weather rmessages.

11. Things you buy that provide no or advantage or decreased performance. Others have covered all the melee stanzas that are useless but I'd also mention buying inreased harvesting rate stanzas and time bonus stanzas that actually decrease the rate a which you pull mats and get xp.

12. Aggro Droppers. Ths is one of my two "community" based beef. We've all been in the situation where we have been running our butts off and inadvertently pass a poor harvestor or other peep who gets the mob dropped on them. Hopefully we survive and go back and rez the por unsuspecting soul. But I am referring to the soloing peeps who consistently follow your team or you around while say leveling their ranged and then run a circle around your team while shooting away and when HP gets low, using speed to take off and the mob on its way back to its regular haunt jumps in the "fight for your life" that you are having with one or more of its brothers / sisters.

13. Window Hogggers. Don't ya just love it when 1 or 2 peeps come to craft at the stable and leave three packers smack dab in front of the raw mat dealer or stable boy, leaving everyone else to try and squeeze in......not to mention, they log off for 3 or 4 days leaving the packers in the same spot.

14. Dumb mistakes. Like buying Heal 1,2,3,4,5,6 actually gives you Heal 1,3,5,7,9,11

15. Overpowered Heal. HP heal way overpowered compared to sap / stamina heal. Why does one need to heal 5,000 HP points ? Encourages too much use of "suicide spells" and ties in w/item 5. Management of sap / stamina / HP taken out of team strategy. Of course major mob HP increases would have to be correspondingly adjusted if this was changed.

16. A manual. A document which contains basic info on guilds (for examlpe how many officers permitted for corresponding number of members), harvesting (explanation of tracking and seasons / weather), mob resistances (explaining how to dtermine specific mob resistance to various weapons / spells), fame (for example how missions work in team.....team of 4 did kill dune riders mission....had to kill 49 dune riders to get credit for 16).

17. That damn drop move. I am harvesting a source and some lumpie thinks I'm its mommy and runs over to me when kipucka chases it. I see it coming, start running away, making ground get about 5 meters away and then my character has to stop, drop to the ground and pick up his car keys or something and promptlly gets dead.

18. Oddball Crafts. Could we get rid of the 182's and 76's and have degrades fail in round numbers ? Say 75, 80, 85, 90....190, 185.

19. Speed of light movements. I got a hi speed cable modem, high end vid card and Pentium 3.6 overclocked to 4 GHz so I doubt it's on my end. But why can kipucka and kincher teleport from 50m away to my side in the blink of an eye. I am not talking about when they run over, I am talking about when they disapperar from one location and reappear next to you.

20. Tryker Isolation. It's a do-able trip to sneak from Zorai / Fyros / Matis to any of the other two lands or to just fight your way through with a mid level team. But the Tryker trip OTOH, is one that can only be accomplished by hi level teams.

jared96 wrote:17. That damn drop move. I am harvesting a source and some lumpie thinks I'm its mommy and runs over to me when kipucka chases it. I see it coming, start running away, making ground get about 5 meters away and then my character has to stop, drop to the ground and pick up his car keys or something and promptlly gets dead.

18. Oddball Crafts. Could we get rid of the 182's and 76's and have degrades fail in round numbers ? Say 75, 80, 85, 90....190, 185.

Many good issues, #17 cracks me up because it happens so much (and probably don't effect the life or death part... surely don't help). #18 I like but even 10's is neater

jared96 wrote:14. Dumb mistakes. Like buying Heal 1,2,3,4,5,6 actually gives you Heal 1,3,5,7,9,11

I might be wrong, but i think that that's not a mistake, and that the other healing blocks, aka 2,4,6... are actually the Life Gift spells. But don't quote me on this .